Sumatran rhino move. » Los Angeles Zoo

19-02-2007

Patrick- yes, if they have collected semen from Torgamba it may prove useful somewhere down the line- its a great shame they haven't been able to breed from him. Unlike Port Lympne's two females, he was a much younger animal but it seems both at Port Lympne and later at Way Kambas he has had older/non fertile(?) partners. Now they have young females at Way Kambas,it seems too late for him as he isn't in 100% good health anymore. Its all enormously frustrating. Perhaps with Andalas, Rosa & Ratu things will finally come together as these three are all perfectly aged for success....

Mark- no, it wasn't Port Lympne's fault really they failed with the Sumatrans. They certainly feed their animals(all species) a better diet than just about any other zoo- no expense was spared with their care either. The 2nd female was called Meranti- after she died I think the post mortem showed the usual tumours in her uterus etc indicating yet another elderly female. The irony is that Torgamba was a relatively young male in those days.

It seems many of the females which were captured and then randomly dstributed among the zoos during the 1980's turned out to be elderly so those zoos were doomed to fail right from the start. I think seven went to the U.S. but by chance only Los Angeles got a young female- Emi, and an older male which died, so Emi was then 'loaned' to Cincinnati who had the only remaining male- Ipuh (plus Rapunzel, another elderly female). You know the rest....

20-02-2007

I was not blaming port lypmne for anythng??, I know how well they were taken care off, i did get to see them off exhibit and a tour of there rhino house, they were very well looked after, It was bad luck that they did not breed them

20-02-2007

didnt u say they had an indoor heated mud bath mark?

20-02-2007

Yes they did, they had a heated mud bath in each pen, I was amazed at the setup.

20-02-2007

Mark- I was just agreeing that they were very well cared for but I didn't know they had heated indoor mudpools though as I never went in the inside areas. That's pretty amazing and I don't think Cincinnati's have anything like that indoors. Have you seen the Cincinnati 'rhinocam' ?

I saw the Sumatran rhinos at Port Lympne about four times, the last time was just Torgamba on his own not long before he went back to Sumatra.

20-02-2007

When I saw them there I was very lucky to be taken to the off exhibit areas which included the rhino house, and even better for me as they let me pat them and give a good rub around there heads and behind their ears which of coarse they loved, I was as close as you could get and they seemed to really like the contact.

Besides the mud pool they also had a heated water pool just in case they wanted a soak for a while. I do remember they had around 8 night pens in the rhino house.

20-02-2007

I got to feed and touch Torgamba too, but in the outside area...

I reckon Andalas will have reached Way Kambas, Sumatra by now- he flew to Jakarta on Feb.18th and then several hours overland journey to the sanctuary so he should be settling in by now.

Cincinnati say they plan to extend their Sumatran rhino accomodation, both to allow year-round public viewing and also to take more animals and extend the genepool -so it sounds as if they hope to keep the young female Suci (Andalas' sister) and maybe get another male from Sumatra? I guess what happens in future with the Cincinnati animals depends on agreement with Indonesia, who still own all the rhinos.

21-02-2007

here's an email I received as a reply when I asked them about the popssibility of getting more sum rhinos



Dear Jason -
Thank you for appreciating our rhinos. Believe me, it is a privilege to
work with these amazing animals.

Emi's pregnancy is progressing very well. Before you know it, we will
have another calf to enjoy!

As a part of our current capital campaign, we are planning to build a
new Sumatran rhino enclosure that will ensure year-round viewing for the
public and access to mud for the animals. It will be an expansion on
the space we already have in the hopes that the program will continue to
grow. There was some discussion about importing an older female at the
end of this year, but it does not look like that will happen. The new
exhibit is still several years away but still a very exciting expansion
of our critically important program.

Thanks for your interest!

Regards,
Terri

21-02-2007

Thanks allot for allowing us to see the response from Cincinnati.

I have massive respect for their hard work and the fact they cracked the code. Obviously they had some luck, ie the female was very young.
But third calf in under 6 years is also brilliant.

I have never seen a sumatran rhino life, but I check on them regularly on the rhino cam.

I had a biology teacher back in Kópavogur, Iceland who saw the famale the Copenhagen zoo had for some years. He showed us a slide show highlighting the plight of the rainforest and its animals.

Well I got seriously infected back then and now cherish this slightly "Asperger" part of my personality...

Thanks allot

Best Wishes

21-02-2007

I have a nice pic of that female Sumatran rhino that was kept in the Copenhagen zoo that was sent to me (in 1973) by the Director of the the day "Arnie", The female was called Subur (the fertile one) and arrived at Copenhagen on the 5th December 1959, it was a collaboration between them and Basel zoo, the plan was a number were to be transfered to a small number of Europen zoos for breeding. I do have the details stored away somewhere.

21-02-2007

Thanks Jay for sharing the Email. Its similar to what they said on their website but with more detail- I believe its from Teri Roth who is the vet in charge of the rhinos and very willing to share knowledge... she replied to me too.

Unfortunately from this it sounds like they won't be enlarging the exhibit for quite some time- I had thought it would be imminent. They say it will give them access to mud- surely they have some sort of mud wallow already?(but not indoors...)

It sounds as if Bina at Way Kambas will now definately stay where she is.(makes better sense with Andalas arriving there). I have always been of the opinion they want to hold on to Suci in Cincinnati as a 2nd breeding female.

Feddi/Mark. Regarding 'Subur' the Copenhagen female. As you know for many years she was the only Sumatran rhino anywhere in captivity- I always wanted to go and see her but never did.

I think the deal was that three zoos- Copenhagen, Basle + one other would each have a pair of animals and later set up breeding exchanges. Unfortunately a number of females were captured, but no males. So each of the three zoos involved received a female, with the males to follow later, except that never happened. The females at Basle and the other zoo soon died (Basle's after a couple of years) but 'Subur' thrived to live a long lonely life. There are plenty of pictures of her as she was famous in her time.

21-02-2007

this species is looking royally screwed. thats not to say we can't try and fix things but there is no point holding animals in america if it is at the expense of the facility in indonesia. quite simply because indonesia is the only place where there is the possibility of aquiring much-needed additional founders. and when/if that happens we have to be able to jump on the opportunity to utilise them immediately. i'm guessing the long delays in translocation are becuase there are years of paperwork involved in importing/exporting th eloaned rhino from one country to another.

by all means cincinatti should continue to breed and keep its pair, but i just think that right now we should aim to have a decent population in one place. that = the maximun (yet still pretty minimal) amount of options and flexibility achievable with such a small group of animals.

(sorry i'm repeating myself arn't i?)

however we definately need another unrelated male if this torgamba (sp?) isn't gonna breed.

whats his deal anyway. what are his health problems?

21-02-2007

Going out on a scarey limb here, I wouldn't be suprised if the sumatran rhino becomes the next large mammal to become extinct. Though the javan has fewer numbers, at least they are a sustainable population in a well protected area. Let's hope that a combined breeding program plus greater protection will save them.

22-02-2007

australian zoos should be doing more in-situ, build facilities, purchase land, to relocate rhinos to new parks, from parks were they are few and afr between

set up a park for elephants, orangs, tigers, everything, a place for 'controlled' wild breeding, yet a place for research and releaseing our own aniamls

22-02-2007

Andalas arrives safely at Way Kambas:
Full article here: Born in US, Sumatran Rhino arrives home